Being an active member of an online community such as MySpace can take up valuable amounts of time each week. Some people end up getting sucked into spending more time on these sites than they do promoting their business and figuring out how they can sell more online. There’s a point when social marketing and Web 2.0 can turn into a time waster.
Too Many Online Communities?
That’s where you need to be wary of how many online communities you join. There is no definite number, and what one person finds to be unmanageable might be just the right amount for someone else.
The key to getting the most out of your own online communities is to find out what your happy number is. If you get to the stage where keeping up with them all is getting difficult – and your work is suffering as a result – then you know you’ve got too many.
It can also depend on how particular online communities are set up. Some are much easier to understand and use than others, and by their very nature it’s going to be the easy to use ones that will get to stay if you find you need to start paring down your efforts in this area.
Get the Best Response
But you should also consider which sites get you the best response, and funnel the largest amount of traffic over to your website. Those will ultimately be the ones that should stay, since they are bringing in the largest volume of interested people.
Social networking has great potential when it comes to locating the target audience for whatever you are selling. When the sites don’t allow you to advertise directly to other members, you can still make a name for yourself because people will start looking for you and your website.
So choose your online communities wisely. Sometimes less really can be more.
About Sean Rasmussen
Hi Sean,
I’m not very good at using the social networking sites. I really enjoy them but I never feel like I have the time to spend there. I feel like I should be either writing posts or promoting my blog.
Social media is really new to me. I’ve only had Facebook and Twitter profiles etc for a few months. It’s a new concept of building relationships that I’m not entirely comfortable with just yet. It’s just a new way of communicating for me and I’m sure I’ll get better at it.
However, I do use Google Analytics to check where my traffic is coming from and make an effort to visit and interact on those sites.
Jazz
Your getting better and better all the time
I guess using the statistics (like Google Analytics) plays a key role in understanding what works and what doesn’t. I am definitely not using that enough at the moment.
I think I’m not over stretched at the moment.
I intend joining a few more and see which ones are providing value. I know Facebook definitely is.
Being a member of too many online communities can definitely be a productivity killer. They can be very addictive and sometimes it takes a a lot of effort to limit your time in these highly social environments.
One possible solution to limiting your time harks back to an earlier post. Keep an online calendar and todo list open in a tab on your browser and have it set up to send you messages whenever you should be moving on to another task.
Just a suggestion.
Hi Sean
I am really into quality not quantity and I would rather be making a solid presence on a couple of sites than spread thinly over many.
I have not started commenting on social sites yet but will start after this competition is over. I know it is really important to do this in order to get known and to be able to help others which I am really looking forward to doing.
Thankyou.
Being a member of too many online communities isn’t my problem yet. I think it will be a long time before it ever is though. I have enough trouble keeping up with other more important tasks at the moment so I am sure I won’t fall into this trap. Tempting as it may be. Have I mentioned before that You Tube keeps me very busy. Trying to break that habit and concentrate on promotional type tasks
The real danger of being active in too many online communities is that you eventually end up spreading yourself too thinly and your tasks and work become equally diluted.
What Elly says is right – quality over quantity – until you are making so much you can outsource all your social media promotional work.
Interestingly enough the most successful article marketer Sean Mize doesn’t do social media at all – just Ezine work
Very Interesting,
I am going to find some of Sean Mize’s articles and have a read, this guy sounds very interesting. I like it that different people have different ways of being successful in internet marketing. There are so many areas we can focus on.
That is exactly what I need to look at – and it’s your fault Sean – you have given so many links and ideas, I am like a kid with a free pass to a candy shop!
But, as you qualify it all here, choose the ones that give the best response. Or what you said elsewhere – 75% to a few and 25% for the remainder.
I must say that I have spent more time on facebook over the past fortnight than the whole year I have had my account.
There are some places where you can just pop in and out of quickly, but others that you need to put time and effort into so that you can build your reputation and following.
Time management at this stage becomes crucial and you have given us some good advice in previous posts to help manage this (tabbed browsing etc)